Charting an Individualized Degree with Program II

Trinity students are encouraged to follow curiosity wherever it may take them. While some academic paths stay rooted in a single department, others emerge at an intersection of disciplines. For the latter journeys, Program II provides a space where undergraduates can design an intentional degree that reflects the full landscape of their curiosity, ambition and engagement beyond the classroom — connecting passions rather than choosing between them.

“For students who haven’t quite found the one single major that truly speaks to them, Program II can be an option that transforms uncertainty into an integrative approach that makes sense,” shares Heather Settle, director for the Program. 

Nikki Quinn saw the freedom and ownership offered in Program II as key factors to becoming a Blue Devil. Recruited for volleyball as a sophomore in high school, she also craved a university with a highly rigorous academic environment that would allow her to pursue her career passions — while also competing in college athletics — without feeling like anything had to be sacrificed. 

From an early age, Quinn had moved easily between experimentation and expression, drawn as much to “MythBusters”and “NOVA Science” as to clay modeling, painting and knitting. She was constantly building, testing and trying new things — a curiosity that also shaped her college search. 

“As an athlete, I knew I needed a place where I could compete at the highest level in volleyball while also pursuing engineering and creative work with the same intensity,” Quinn shares. “Program II became that intersection that lets me bring all of my interests together to push each of them without compromise.”

Quinn’s Program II, Extended Reality and the Design Process: Creation, Iteration, and Immersion Using XR Technologies, sits at the crossroads of mechanical engineering, visual arts and immersive technologies. It enables her to follow the Pratt School of Engineering track over an extended period while also making Visual Arts courses core to her studies, creating a personalized curriculum that bridges both technical and creative rigor.

That interdisciplinary framework becomes tangible in courses like Virtual Museums, where Quinn uses engineering tools like CAD and Fusion 360 to design immersive, three-dimensional environments. Software commonly associated with industrial design and manufacturing becomes, in her hands, a medium for storytelling and spatial experience. 

“The technical precision demanded in my mechanical and architectural engineering courses strengthens my creative work, while art courses push me to think more critically about how people move through and interact with virtual spaces,” she explains. “Program II is like a Venn diagram overlap, where my two worlds meet perfectly in the middle.”

That overlap is intentional, Settle notes. Program II is designed for students whose questions don’t belong to a single discipline; by anchoring a course of study around a central theme and drawing from four to six fields, students learn to approach a problem through multiple methods and ways of thinking. This structure provides a level of flexibility that a traditional double major might not. 

And students can target electives toward the areas where synthesis and integration occur, with two of those electives culminating in a capstone or thesis project. The program also leaves room for experiences such as study abroad or Bass Connections, which can be harder to accommodate within a conventional single- or double-major path.

For Quinn, this creative latitude is essential to her work in virtual and augmented reality. Designing immersive environments, she explains, goes beyond functionality to consider how people move through a space, what draws their attention and how the experience makes them feel. Her engineering courses provide the technical framework behind those systems, while her art classes shape the visual language and interaction design. Together, she says, “that combination is what allows me to build VR and AR experiences that are technically sound and genuinely engaging.”

But building a successful Program II application isn’t effortless, Settle cautions. With two application deadlines in the fall and two in the spring, the process requires careful planning and early preparation. Students work closely with a faculty mentor to develop a proposal that outlines a coherent course plan and demonstrates that their goals cannot be met through an existing major, minor or certificate. 

“Faculty mentors are central to a student’s Program II journey,” Settle emphasizes. “They not only guide the development of the initial proposal but also continue to work closely with the student through to the capstone or thesis.”

Once submitted, the Program II committee reviews each proposal for academic rigor and genuine interdisciplinarity, offering detailed feedback when revisions are needed before the final deadline. Settle adds that the first of the two final deadlines for the spring semester is March 28. Students interested in submitting a proposal should apply in February to ensure enough time to design a proposal, incorporate committee feedback and refine before the March deadline. 

“The early work students invest in their proposals really matters,” Settle says. “For those drawn to work that spans multiple fields, it creates the freedom and ownership to build a curriculum that’s both deeply personal and academically rigorous.”

She also acknowledges that Program II isn’t for everyone — and that’s ok. But for students with a vision that bridges disciplines, it can be transformative. 

“I have the ability and the permission to explore these many connections between my passions, curiosities and ambitions,” Quinn shares. “I didn’t want to edit parts of myself for my major, and Program II lets everything I care about exist in the same space.”